Combine 31 people engaged in water quality monitoring, 2½ days of extraordinary classroom and field instruction, and 3 nights in a relaxed river setting — the event is almost insured to be branded a success by all who were involved. Those gathered at the Canby Grove Conference Center along the Molalla River on the outskirts of Canby, Oregon from July 13–15 enjoyed just such an event.

Most, but not all 2004 workshop participants against the backdrop of the Molalla River.

One of the keys to the success of the 2004 Water Quality Monitoring Workshop was the diversity of participants and instructors gathered at Canby Grove in July. People came from Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and the NIFA national Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Facilitation Project based in Rhode Island. They represented state and federal agencies, tribes, cities, conservation districts, landgrant and sea-grant Extension, several universities, and local watershed groups. Some had years of experience with water quality monitoring, some were just beginning; everyone had something to learn and something to teach the rest of us. Nine people were listed as instructors with a specific responsibility—many others shared their expertise and most instructors were also participants.

Beth Lambert, OSU Watershed Extension, Tillamook County, Oregon, helps groups with monitoring planning exercise.

Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Coordination Project Partners Land Grant Universities Alaska Cooperative Extension Service Contact Fred Sorensen: 907-786-6311 http://www.uaf.edu/ces/water/ University Publications: http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/ces/publications/ Idaho University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System Contact Bob Mahler: 208-885-7025 http://www.uidaho.edu/wq/wqhome.html University Publications: http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Catalog/catalog.html Oregon Oregon State University Extension Service Contact Mike Gamroth: 541-737-3316 http://extension.oregonstate.edu/ University Publications: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/ Washington Washington State University WSU Extension Contact Bob Simmons: 360-427-9670 ext. 690 http://wawater.wsu.edu/ University Publications: http://pubs.wsu.edu/ Northwest Indian College Contact Charlotte Clausing: 360-392-4319 cclausing@nwic.edu or http://www.nwic.edu/ Water Resource Research Institutes Water and Environmental Research Center (Alaska) http://www.uaf.edu/water/ Idaho Water Resources Research Institute http://www.boise.uidaho.edu/ Institute for Water and Watersheds (Oregon) http://water.oregonstate.edu/ State of Washington Water Research Center http://www.swwrc.wsu.edu/ Environmental Protection Agency EPA, Region 10 The Pacific Northwest http://www.epa.gov/r10earth/ Office of Research and Development, Corvallis Laboratory http://www.epa.gov/wed/ For more information contact Jan Seago at 206-553-0038 or seago.jan@epa.gov
	Instruction focused on the common water quality criteria most often encountered by those involved in the Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) process: temperature, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, pH, bacteria, and aquatic invertebrates. In the real world these factors don't occur in isolation, so that is how they were taught—in the context of the whole watershed. Lectures covered the basics, case studies and group planning exercises applied what was learned, and riverside monitoring activities provided hands-on experiences. It must also be added that substantial learning occurred in the informal discussions over meals and during impromptu instruction during "free time." A new feature of this year's workshop is that is was PAPERLESS. A workshop manual or a stack of miscellaneous handouts often accompanies this type of workshop. When one considers the environmental and financial cost these paper piles create in relationship to the actual educational benefit, it is hard to justify the use of these resources. Instead of a notebook, a workshop CD and web site were produced. The CD includes all the PowerPoint presentations, numerous files for handbooks and other resources that can be printed if desired, photos of the workshop, contact information for future networking, and active links to the various web sites suggested by the instructors and participants. The CD saves on download time for those with slow connections because the photos and some publication files are huge. The web site started as an exact posting of the CD, but since this active format allows for updated information there have already been some changes and additions. Visit the web site at: http://www.pnwwaterweb.com/monitoring04.htm For more information about this or other PNW NIFA projects, contact one of the team members listed on the back page of this flyer. Sharon Collman provided the hands-on demonstration of macroinvertebrate sampling methods.
	National Water Quality Program Areas The four land grant universities in the Pacific Northwest have aligned our water resource extension and research efforts with eight themes of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Animal Waste Management Drinking Water and Human Health Environmental Restoration Nutrient and Pesticide Management Pollution Assessment and Prevention Watershed Management Water Conservation and Agricultural Water Management Water Policy and Economics
	NIFA is the Cooperative States Research, Education and Extension Service, a sub-agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, and is the federal partner in this water quality program.

Download the informational PDF flyer here

HOME | About | Calendar | Contacts | Links | PNW Water Updates | Sitemap NIFA National Water Quality Program This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2008-51130-04734. all external sites will open in a new browser window page last modified on August 27, 2006